I really like Multiplicity images.  Rebekka over at Flickr has some of the best.  One multiplicity theme that seem to be common for lots of people is a creepy, scary, surprise killer in the background.  I’ve been having fun with the multiplicity thing and this is my parody of those images.

The the most important part of any project like this is to get establish the idea before you start to shoot.  The idea comes from seeing other peoples images, videos, or even a movie.  Sometimes I get the idea for an image when talking to people.  You might say the image just pops into my mind and then I start to figure out how to make the image with the camera.  More often that not, the image that gets made is not the image that I imagined but it’s the result of the idea.  Things get in the way of the big plan…  This one is pretty close to the original idea – most are not this close.

My method for creating  a multiplicity image is to set up the tripod and somewhere it can stay very stable.  I always shoot these (and pretty much everything else) I shoot these images in RAW because I know I’ll need to clean it up in post.

Next I figure out the lighting.  In this case I used two Nikon SB flashes.  the first is a SB800 bounced off ceiling, second is an SB600 in shoot through umbrella.  I shot the lighting tethered so  didn’t have to worry about moving the camera since it was in a pretty hard place to get to.  See the setup shot at the end for more info about camera and light placement.

The next step is post processing.  For this image I used PhotoShop Elements to process it.  First I created a layer with image one – brushing my teeth.  Then create layer two – toothpaste tube wielding mad man.  Then I used polygon tool to outline the mirror and remove it.  This let the toothpaste tube wielding mad man show through.  I had a little work to do on levels and some work to correct camera distortion.  This shot was at 17mm in a small room so it was pretty warped and that needed straightened out.   Finally, I created a high pass filter layer (at 3.4) and about 35% opacity to sharpen the picture a little.  Then output for the web and write the post.

That’s pretty much it!  Enjoy the image and give one a try yourself, just keep your tripod steady.  Oh, and use the camera’s timer to insure enough time to get in place and to keep your camera solid.

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